What of the future

The Facts...

On Friday, an F-15C broke up over Missouri while on a regular training flight. The US Airforce has grounded the entire F-15 fleet, including the slightly newer F-15E's.

The query

Is this just another sign of the rundown state of the US military? A force bleed white by the stress of two wars and innumerable deployments. Or is it just some maintenance gaff by tired hands? Or is it something more fundamental like the F-15 series has had a weak knee all along and we never knew about it?

Speculation

My bet is on some iffy maintenance, someone put the inversion climometer the wrong way round on the upper ventral ballast mast... however, the other potential failures have vastly more mind numbing implications.

If the issue is a force wide problem of failing maintenance at the depot level because of Iraq and Afghan demands then the whole force is clearly in a pretty shaky position. This could affect far more than just high performance F-15's, it could be the whole shebang. Recently I saw National Guard units going on exercise, with Humvee doors duct taped in place. What's going on?

F-15's need lots of training to fly, yet we keep hearing that todays fighter jockeys are getting less seat time than Soviet pilots got in the late 1980's, and they got almost nothing by our standards of the day. Less seat time more accidents.

The F-15C is the primary air superiority fighter in the US arsenal, it is THE aircraft the US would depend upon to wrestle dominance of the sky from a potential adversary. It will remain in that lofty position for probably another 5 years until the F-22 fleet is large enough to take the role on. With 700 C, D and E models in the inventory, it's a big player in anyones game book.

Should this have been a fundamental fatigue issue with some component, the same concerns can be raised - can the aircraft do the job it's required to do? An even more alarming prognosis for the Airforce awaits if this is the case: if they need to repair large numbers of F-15's with, say, new wing spars, then the cost could eat into the non-existent budget available for the F-22 purchase. Either way such scenarios don't play out well.

The Airforce is depending on the F-15 to stay the course, and to get its 'full' complement of some 260+ F-22's. If the F-15 can't go the distance, then there is a hole in our defences. The F-22 is but 20 aircraft in the US inventory, maybe 50 by the end of 2008. It's not capable of picking up 700 some open slots with these numbers, especially if the F-15 fleet faces an early grave in Arizona.

One other thing this could potentially scuppers is any thought of buying F-15's to fill-in for the F-22, should there be some unforeseen production mishap. That will please a lot of Generals in the Pentagon who have faced withering fire from the politicians over making sure there are aircraft on the production lines between the F-22 and the F-35.

At least the pilot bailed out of this break up; can the US Airforce find an equally successful ending to a nasty situation?